


Loyalty

by TempestRising



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Basically just Ned and Peter Being Really Fucking Cute Okay, Gen, Good Friend Ned Leeds, Hurt Ned Leeds, Hurt/Comfort, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Protective Ned Leeds, Protective Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 00:37:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19983169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: Ned made excuses to teachers when Peter ran late, he covered with Aunt May when Peter missed curfew, he paid Peter's bus fare when his card ran out, he did more than his share of the homework and brought a First-Aid kit to school and patched into the suit most nights so he could track Spider-Man swinging around the borough.Or: Spider-Man takes care of Queens, and Ned takes care of Spider-Man





	Loyalty

_**Peter Parker:** I'm sick of Mr. Stark treating me like a kid!  
**Ned Leeds:** But you are a kid._

.***.

They had been friends for a long time.

Ned knew that when Peter came into school carrying his backpack instead of wearing it, it was probably because some baddie had ripped up Spider-Man's back the night before. On those days Ned would think fast and get them out of gym (locker rooms being a hot spot for bruise-spotting and CPS alerts) and spend the period raiding the decathalon's snack drawer, trying to get enough calories in Peter's body for his super healing to kick in.

He knew that when Peter texted that he was going to miss first period: **ugh, alarm didn't go off, notes please?!** he really meant that he hadn't gotten home until his Spider-Man curfew of eleven PM and then had homework and APs to study for and the SAT prep books next to his bed and also Peter was on a scholarship and couldn't slip below and 3.5 and everything was piling up and sometimes a boy just needed to sleep. And so Ned would type up his notes on the shared Google Doc that also included MJ and her acerbic asides and propensity for highlighting exactly the phrase that would show up on the test.

And it wasn't like Peter was a slacker, but the poor guy was just so tired, so stretched thin, so much traveling upstate to see Stark and also tagging along to presentations and conferences as the older man showed off his newest protege, plus Spider-Manning it up all over Queens and trying to see Aunt May when their schedules aligned and so yeah if Peter needed Ned, his lab partner, to finish off that report, or needed a summary of _The Kite Runner_ to finish up the book report, then obviously Ned's giving it to him.

They had been friends for a long time.

Ned knew when to invite Peter over his house for dinner. Sometimes it was what Peter needed, to be seated at a table with a home cooked meal and two parents asking questions about school and girls and decathalon and his internship, it was usually a night of lying but also a night of Ned's mom's poke and long rice. Sometimes Peter would fish for an invitation, especially when Cal, Ned's older brother, was going to be home from college, because Cal was a bit obsessed with Spider-Man and (embarrassingly) had a YouTube fan channel dedicated to the neighborhood menace that was actually getting a decent number of views, thanks in part to some photos Peter slipped him during those dinners.

So what if Ned spent most of those dinners watching Peter perk up. So what if he didn't touch his poke, not at all, as Peter and Cal talked about what could possibly be in Spider-Man's web shooters.

They had been friends for a long time. When someone wanted to find Peter, they often went to Ned first.

"Yo Leeds, where's Parker?" Coach asked as Peter skipped yet another gym class. Very visible bruises on his forearms, too many questions, Peter was either taking a nap or catching up on Physics.

But Coach didn't need to know that, and Coach liked Peter, who could climb his ropes and run his laps with far more dexterity than Ned could (ha). "He had to make up a test for history, and Mr. Lyle said that gym was 'not really an academic subject.' Sorry coach. You know Peter would be here if he could."

Or he'd get texts from Aunt May: **have you seen my child today?**

**Ned Leeds: (screenshot) Twitter says he's putting out a literal fire**

**Aunt May: I don't know if I should blame Stark or all spiders everywhere**

Or he'd get it from the academic decathalon team, snide comments and asides between questions. "Is Peter ever coming to practice again?"

Occasionally he'd even get a call from Mr. Stark, or Happy. "Tell Peter to call me, and that if he gets Karen to block my calls again I am taking away that AI and giving him one with a very, very boring personality."

Ned would pass along the messages. Or he wouldn't.

Like the message he got from a group of Senior girls who had, apparently, been friends with Liz. Ned had never seen them before. Probably because he and Peter were too busy staring at Liz herself.

The girls had cornered him by the vending machines. It was one of those days where MJ was protesting on some corner and Peter was using the lunch period to make some more web fluid and so Ned was just trying to study some Spanish verbs but he needed a granola bar to do that (okay, some Cheetos) and so he, like, went to get some Cheetos.

And found himself in the middle of an all-girl...fight club? Somehow Ned was in an unused classroom with fifteen Senior girls who looked very, very pissed off. "Your friend Peter royally screwed over Liz at Homecoming, and since we can never seem to track him down, well. A friend for a friend, right?"

Ned wasn't really sure what they meant. Knife fight? Rap battle? Human sacrifice?

Turns out it meant pantsing him and posting the evidence to SnapChat. Super classy. Super effective.

His new nickname, in certain circles? Hairless Wonder.

But he and Peter had been friends for a long time.

He knew that on the anniversary of Uncle Ben's death he should let Peter have dinner with Aunt May and then go over with some video games and watch Peter slash some bad guys without any Spider-Man consequences.

He knew that on Mother's Day he'd get a series of texts from Peter, asking him which card he should get for Aunt May. Because they all said Mom, and he had a Mom, even though he didn't remember her, but he also needed to get Aunt May something. They usually ended up crossing out words on a dollar store card.

One year, on Father's Day, Peter had sent him a picture of a card that he'd picked up. For Tony Stark. That was a surprise, but Ned sent back a series of emjoiis and filed the information away.

He knew to pack twice as much lunch as he ate, so Peter could take half. He knew that Peter loved apples and Twizzlers and peanut butter sandwiches and day-old rice, knew that Peter had started drinking coffee since he became Spider-Man, knew that Peter really didn't like peas, or sweet potatoes, or tofu.

He knew that Peter had way, way less money than most people at Midtown, that he had been talking about getting a job and then became an unpaid superhero. Ned tried to give him money, sometimes - Ned got money on his birthday and on Christmas and sometimes for babysitting some neighbor's kids -and, sometimes, Peter would flush and take it.

He knew that Peter was allergic to grass. He knew that Peter loved the city. He knew that Peter tried his best to help people. That he fed Flash an answer in academic decathalon so the bully could impress a girl, that he jumped at every opportunity the Avengers threw his way. That he put himself last, almost always.

Ned was the guy in the chair. They'd been friends for along time. A part of that friendship meant that Spider-Man looked after Queens and Ned looked after Spider-Man.

He made excuses to teachers when Peter ran late, he covered with Aunt May when Peter missed curfew, he paid Peter's bus fare when his card ran out, he did more than his share of the homework and brought a First-Aid kit to school and patched into the suit most nights so he could track Spider-Man swinging around the borough.

And he didn't think he was doing anything exceptional. Ned didn't think that he was particularly important, or self-sacrificing. If he went above and beyond in his own small sphere of school-home-school, it was because the entire time he looked at his best friend with an electric kind of low grade fear

_don't die don't die don't die don'tdiedon'tdiedon'tdie please Peter don't die_

Compared to what Peter did every night? Ned was doing nothing.

.

They'd been friends for a long time.

Okay, so Ned may have blurted out in gym class that Peter knew Spider-Man, and Ned's brother did run a pretty well-trafficked Spider-Man channel with lots of exclusive footage, and, yeah, sometimes Ned went to the places where Peter webbed up his backpack and pulled it down so it wouldn't get stolen, again, and also once a picture appeared online of Spider-Man giving Ned a thumb's up on the street.

But, like, little things. Who even notices that stuff?

.

He started to realize there might be a problem when he got off the train and a couple of guys got off with him. Ned had taken the same route home from school every day for two years. He knew the Mrs. Yangs, who worked at a beauty parlor uptown and came home around the same time Ned did, he knew Andy Garcia, who also went to Midtown and sometimes walked home with Ned when he wasn't at chess club, and he definitely did not know these three guys wearing, frankly, too many layers for late spring, following half a block behind him.

He fumbled out his phone, telling himself that he was overthinking this, that it was still plenty light out and the streets were kind of crowded and he was a boy who had rarely thought about, you know, stranger danger on the rough and tumble streets of Queens. So, yeah, probably nothing, and he swiped over to his messages with Peter.

**might be a web slinger situation here**

He was about to drop a pin, just, you know, in case, when one of the men sped up and boxed him against the buildings. Into an alley.

Sometimes Peter patrolled Ned's route home, making a high wire between the buildings and generally being visible. Ned looked up. Just in case.

"You waiting for that spider to save you? Huh? You been running your mouth kid, and we've got a thing or two to say to your buddy Spider-Man."

Behind Neckless Badguy #1, another guy scoffed. "This meatball? No way does he know Spider-Man. Look at him! Shaking in his boots."

"Shaking in his sneakers."

"Spider-Man's not going to save you, but just in case you do know him." Knuckles crack. Ned's boxed against the wall, his phone still in hand. "Tell Spider-Man that if he keeps coming after our people, we'll keep going after his."

Ned knew the punch was coming but was still surprised by how much it hurt, a sledgehammer blow to his jaw. He bit his tongue or maybe his cheek and tasted blood immediately. Another blow from the other side got him in the ear and he staggered, raising his arms to cover his head, sick not so much at the pain but at the knowledge that the pain was going to get worse.

Then someone jerked his arms away, and Ned tried to kick out, and then he was on the ground and they were kicking him, kicking him, kicking him.

.

Ned blinked.

"Don't try to get up. Oh, god, Ned. I called for an ambulance. They should be here by now."

He didn't try to get up. Trying to move at all didn't seem to be on the agenda, not for a while. He did open his eyes, though. It was still light out, as if no time had passed. Maybe it hadn't. And there was Peter. Of course there was Peter. Mask off, Spider-Man suit on.

He tried to lift his head.

"Don't move! This is bad, man. Oh god, I need to call your mom. She's going to kill me. I need to call Aunt May and I need to call your mom and where the hell is that ambulance? Do you think your spine is broken? I don't think your spine is broken. I just - I don't want to leave you on the ground like that. Okay? Come here."

Ned felt himself being moved. His head pillowed on Peter's legs. Like they were in his room, playing video games. Like they were little kids in their blanket fort watching 80s movies.

He hurt everywhere.

"I'm so sorry," Peter murmured, his hands shaking in Ned's hair. "I walked MJ home, and I was so far away, and then I got your text but - when I saw them hurting you - I was so mad. I...I think I really hurt them."

Ned tried to pat Peter's trembling hand. It took too many muscles to move.

"But one of them had a knife. They were gutting you."

Ned finally got his mouth open. "Not b-bleeding."

"I webbed you up. You are bleeding. We're sitting in your blood."

Sirens in the distance. Ned pushed Peter away. Tried to. An ant pushing at an oak tree. "You need to go."

"Go? No! I need to go with you." Peter sounded close to tears. Ned opened his eyes again, as far as they would open. His face felt puffy, swollen, and one eye wouldn't open at all. "I need to stay with you!"

"You don't need to," Ned breathed. "You're Spider-Man."

How did Peter not understand that? That in the contest between Ned Leeds, nobody, and Spider-Man, literal superhero, Spider-Man would win every time? that if Spider-Man, the neighborhood menace, had really hurt those thugs then it would be more than the Bugle on his ass, it'd be the police force, too. Spider-Man simply couldn't come to the hospital. There wasn't room.

"Fuck Spider-Man," Peter spat. He deactivated the suit. Nanobots were amazing. "I'm Peter Parker."

Peter Parker, surrounded by webs, in the wrong place at the wrong time, again. Next to Ned. Again. "They'll know. Peter. They'll figure it out."

The sirens shut off. They only had seconds. The pillow under Ned's head disappeared.

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry."

Ned opened his eyes (eye) again. Half-slit. Peter seemed to be trying to find a way to hug Ned without hurting him. In the end, it was a brush of the lips against Ned's cheek.

"I'll be at the hospital. I'll get your mom. Don't die."

"Get out of here."

"I'll be there. I'm sorry. I'll be there."

Slamming doors outside the alley. The bare whisper of a web as Ned's best friend in the world ran away.

.

They had been friends for a long time.

Peter lingered in the waiting room while Mrs. Leeds argued with the nurses. When they were finally allowed in (family only) Mrs. Leeds dragged him down the hallway by his shirt sleeve, barking at the curious looks, telling everyone that Peter was her son.

They had been friends for a long time. Peter knew that Ned missed his brother now that Cal was at college, knew that Ned could stand up to the toughest bad guy but blushed at the mention of boobs. He knew that Ned's favorite holiday was Thanksgiving, and he claimed it was because of the turkey but Peter knew that it was really because Ned thought an entire holiday set aside for being grateful was humanity at its finest.

Ned was the first one in Peter's real life to find out about Spider-Man, and he'd asked a lot of questions. Some stupid, sure, but some nights they really got into it. The...moral implications of it. Did Peter really think his secret identity could protect his friends? What would he do about the Accords? Would he need any help? Could he need help from a mere mortal? How could Ned help?

"I don't want you to get hurt," Peter had protested.

And Ned had frowned. "Right back at you."

They had been friends for a long time, and Peter had never seen Ned looking like this.

Mrs. Leeds was barely holding it together as the doctor described the injuries (several broken teeth, a fractured eye socket, two broken fingers, three bruised ribs, and a cut that ran from his ear to midway through his cheek that a plastic surgeon had sewn shut but would probably still leave a faint white scar). Mrs. Leeds was shaking and asking questions and Peter just stared at Ned and thought that he'd give up Spider-Man if he could give it to Ned. Give him the super healing and the super powers, give him everything.

He drifted over to the hospital bed, watching the lines of the monitors rise and fall. He looked down when something nudged his knee. Ned's hand, prickled with IVs and needles, making a loose fist to tap against his knee.

Peter reached down and gently tapped the fist with his fist. There was more to the handshake but this would have to be enough for now. "I'm going to give you some defense lessons," Peter swore.

"You should see the other guys," Ned croaked.

Peter had seen the other guys. He'd been keeping an eye on the news. They weren't dead, but Spider-Man had been sure to leave them all in worse shapes than Ned. He was a menace again. Maybe he'd been a menace all along.

He didn't say that, though. He said, "Two more minutes and you would have had them."

"Two minutes? I had them just where I wanted them."

Peter pulled up a chair and tried not to search the bruises of Ned's face for his friend underneath. They traded jokes back and forth, because it was easier than saying the truth.

_I love you._

_Don't die._

But they'd been friends for a long time. They knew.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly thought I'd posted this weeks ago. Hope someone out there still reads this. For my little sister, who loves Spider-Man and always wants a happy ending.


End file.
